How to write a quote that gets accepted

01What the customer is deciding

A homeowner reading your quote is asking three things: what exactly am I getting, what will it cost in total, and when will it be done. A quote that answers all three on one page, in plain words, gets a quicker yes than one that leaves them to ring you with questions.

It also protects you. Once the customer accepts, the quote is the agreement. Consumer law says your service must be supplied according to the contract terms agreed and match what you told the customer. The clearer the quote, the less room there is for “I thought that was included”.

02What the law says you must tell a homeowner

When you sell to a consumer, which means someone paying for work on their own home rather than a business, the Consumer Rights Act 2022 sets out what you must tell them before they agree. The CCPC’s guide to your obligations when selling services lists it:

• your business name, address and phone number
• what the service is, if that’s not already clear
• the total price including VAT, or how the price will be worked out if you can’t know it in advance
• any extra charges
• whether the customer has a legal right to cancel

If the customer agrees away from your premises (in their home, by phone or by email), the list is longer: your email address, how payment and the work will be arranged, and the conditions of any deposit. After they agree, you must give them a copy or confirmation of the contract, on paper unless they agree to another form such as email.

One line in that guide matters more than the rest: if there’s a dispute, you must prove the information was provided. A written quote that the customer accepted is that proof.

03What to put on the quote

The legal list is the minimum. A quote that gets accepted usually has all of this:

Write lines the customer can picture. “Paint living room: walls and ceiling, two coats, customer’s choice of colour” beats “Living room €480”. Spell out the prep, the number of coats and whether materials are included; those are what make two quotes for the same room differ.

Show the VAT properly. If you’re registered, the CCPC says the price you give a consumer must be the total price including VAT. Show the price before VAT, the VAT and the total, so the customer can see where the money goes. Most building work is at 13.5%; our VAT guide explains when it’s 23%. If you’re not registered, show no VAT at all.

Keep the terms short and in plain English. Consumer law expects contract terms to be written in plain, understandable English, without small print, and with the cost of any term, such as a cancellation fee, clearly explained. A customer can’t be bound by an unfair term, so a long page of one-sided conditions protects you less than it seems.

04How long to hold your prices

No law sets how long a quote must stay open. It’s your choice, and it should be on the quote as a date, not “subject to change”.

Think about what moves your costs. If your price is mostly labour, a month is easy to hold. If you’re pricing materials that change often, such as copper cable or timber, a shorter window protects you. Many trades use 30 days, which gives the customer time to compare quotes and you time to plan.

When the date passes, you’re free to re-price. Send a new quote rather than honouring an old one by habit, and tell the customer what changed.

05Deposits and start dates

Say the deposit on the quote, not afterwards. The CCPC’s advice to customers is to confirm, before they pay a deposit, the completion date, whether the deposit is refundable and any cancellation charge, in writing. If your quote already answers those, the customer has nothing to chase. Our guide on how much deposit to ask for covers the amount.

Agree a start date. Consumer law expects the work to be done as agreed, including any agreed time; if no time was agreed, within a reasonable time. A date on the quote, or “within two weeks of the deposit”, gives the customer something to plan around and gives you a clear target. If it slips, tell them early.

06The cooling-off period

This is the part most trades don’t know. If a homeowner agrees to your quote in their own home, by phone or by email, the contract is an “off-premises” or “distance” contract, and the customer can cancel it without giving a reason. For a service, the cancellation period is 14 days from the day the contract is made. It’s 30 days if the contract was made during an unsolicited visit, meaning you called to their door without being asked.

Three things follow:

• Tell them about the right to cancel. If you don’t, the cancellation period is extended by up to 12 months.
• Starting inside the 14 days. If the customer wants you to start sooner, the law says you must get their express request on a durable medium, such as an email or a signed note. If they then cancel part-way, they pay for the work done so far, in proportion to the agreed price. Without that request, or without the cancellation information, they owe nothing for that work.
• Once the job is fully done at their express request, and they acknowledged they’d lose the right to cancel, the right to cancel ends.

There are exceptions. The right to cancel doesn’t apply where the customer called you out for urgent repairs or maintenance, and the CCPC lists contracts agreed in a physical shop among the others. For a business customer, consumer rights don’t apply at all.

07After you send it

Follow up once or twice. A short, friendly note a couple of days after sending, and another a few days later, catches the quotes that were simply forgotten. If the answer is no, ask why; price, timing and “went with someone I know” each tell you something different.

Make saying yes easy. The fewer steps between reading the quote and accepting it, the more quotes get accepted. A link the customer can open on their phone, with an accept button, beats “print, sign and post back”.

Keep the accepted version. Whatever the customer agreed to is your record if there’s a question later. Don’t edit an accepted quote; send a new one for any change, and get it accepted too.

08What QuotePaid does for you

QuotePaid builds each quote from your price list, with each line, the price before VAT, the VAT at 13.5% or 23% and the total, or no VAT if you’re not registered. Your business details and VAT number go on every quote. Each quote has a valid-until date and shows the deposit due to book the job. Your customer opens the quote from a link on their phone and accepts with their name and a start date, or asks a question, or tells you why they said no. If they haven’t answered, QuotePaid sends a short follow-up on day 2 and day 5, and stops when they answer.

Still quoting from a Word or Excel template? Here’s an honest comparison, including where the template is better.